There are some great writers putting out some great material in the form of plays, movies, monologues, podcasts, blogs, poetry, spoken word poetry, documentaries, relevant songs & raps, literary reviews, essays & many other forms.

Make sure your children & teens read a lot. Reading is powerful.

The children & teens have smart phones & tablets. Make sure they don’t just play games on them.

People call phones”Smart Phones.” I agree. They are SMART PHONES. If used in productive ways. These phones & tablets are very productive tools, if used productively.

The Amazon Kindles are Great. The Ipads are Great. The Samsung Tablets are Great. The Barnes and Noble Nooks are Great. They all have Color Screens. Important for Apps & Videos Viewing.

But, if you are a Hardcore Reader, go for the Nooks & Kindles with the White Screens. The Battery Life is Much Better. Maybe 2X-3X Better. You can Read on them without Glares & in any kind of Lighting without tilting the Monitor a Certain Way to get Better Lighting. The Color Monitors are Very difficult to Read Outside in Sunlight. Many times, you have to adjust the Brightness level on Color Screens.

Children have a natural inclination toward knowledge. We as adults have to make sure nothing kills that inclination. We are more powerful than we know as parents. We are the 1st teachers. We must hold on to our position with dear life. We must make everything out of a learning opportunity. Relate everything to the Real World. Throw sugarcoating out the door. We will see change in our lifetime. Reality strengthens the minds & gives clear vision. Lets be on that vibe.

Sunshine for The Minds.

Test taking skills are very important. More than 1/2 to 3/4 of standardized test is reading. Even the Math is word problems. The Social Studies, Science & Literature is top heavy with Reading also. Surface level reading is not cutting it.

Trades for our people is so very important. Jobs are not knocking on people doors. We must learn how to take things we are passionate about, & make money & provide servces for our people…the world. We have built nations before. That is in our genetic make-up. All we got to do is dig deep down in ourselves, and pull that greatness up & out of us.

Adult Education is a must. We have people that can work with adults…providing them with knowledge to help their children with homework and trades.

We drop money in the buckets at church, and hardly see returns. Why can’t we drop money in the bucket and buy land & material & we all roll up sleeves and build schools & businesses? Our pay will be in having something we can be proud of and be of a practical use to us now…while our eyes are open…heaven on earth right now.

A lot of books you can get for Free on Amazon Kindle. There is a thing called Amazon KDP. Which boils down to Authors in attempt to build a Readership will give their Ebooks Away for Free 5 times or more in a 90 day Period.

Open an Amazon Kindle Account and Put in The Keyword to a Trade you want to learn and put in Free or Price range you want to spend.

You can get a lot of Free Ebooks from Amazon like this.

Next time you look around, months later, that same Ebook you got for Free, might be $4.99-$14.99 or more.

* Another way to self-learn is Youtube.

* Talk to people who been in the trade a long time and see if they might want an apprentice. Or ask them can you help out at the trade shops.

* Buy Books & Research on the Internet & checkout books at the library.

* Rent Instructional Videos.

Never Quit Learning.
——
***—>> This world is not a joke. It is hard as concrete. Inspire the youth toward hobbies, skills, trades, manufacturing & production.

Make sure the youth can use their minds & hands to invent, create, build, produce and manufacture.

Inspire them to learn how to record vocal, mix & master audio–audio engineering.

Inspire them to draw, scan their artwork or take photos of it with fancy expensive phone and tablets–>> smart phones–get the artwork in the computer or app on phone or tablet and design a logo–clothing line design.

What will be any different with your child’s skillset? What can they build? What can they create? What can they invent? What can they produce? What can they manufacture with their minds and hands?

So many artistic children have no technical skills. Why is this negative? It is negative because they are stuck in a time warp. Meaning, their art is analog. It has to be made digital at some point, if they want to open up their options more with their art.

Do they know how to scan their art into the computer? Do they know how to take photos with a digital camera and get the images from the camera to the computer? Do they know how to use Adobe Photoshop? One of the leading Image Manipulation, pixel based softwares in the World.

Do they know how to use Adobe Illustrator? One of the world’s leading vector based softwares. These two softwares alone, put the artist miles ahead of analog artists. Imagine if your child has a firm grip on the Analog & The Digital side of the house. Their potential will be elevated to another hemisphere.

I used the example of the artist above. That is example. There are so many more examples for various trades.

When I look into your eyes Black Youth, I see a gleam in them. You have your Youth, your energy, your belief that something great awaits you as you become adults. When you are young—you believe you will one day be somebody great. You watch comedy, sports, music videos, and many other things, and envision yourselves as being as as you see & hear.

Many of you want to be a singer, a rapper, a comedian, a fashion model, an actor, etc.

For years, you wait to cut a demo as a musician, or spend thousands of dollars on comp cards as a model, photo shoots, and modeling classes.

There are many superstars in school sports waiting for a football, volleyball, basketball, softball scholarship—and, most times not pushed toward academic excellence by coaches, parents, and teachers the same way.

When will black youth have a common goal or be presented with heroes and sheroes that did something great for us and loved us… people like Ida B. Wells, T. Thomas Fortune, Elijah Muhammad, W.E.B. Dubois, Mary McCleod Bethune, The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, Lucy Laney, Mary Church Terrell, John Henrik Clarke, John G. Jackson, and the likes. Here are only a few of names of great people that loved us . What makes these giants so much more different than the ones our youth are given in Feburary during Black History Month—is they dedicated their entire lives to our rise as a people.

A lot of our ancestors mission for our betterment was almost a priesthood. In other words, we consumed their every waking thoughts. You need to know of them so you can be inspired to be somebody. Not somebody that will serve only to make our people more of a consumer by selling records, going to concerts, a sports game, movie to see you on the big screen.

When your dreams of being a singer, dancer, comedian, actor, athlete, fashion model, talk show host, etc…Don’t meet your expectations, where will you go from there? Will you still have your energy and belief you will be somebody?

Well, I am here to tell you now Beautiful Black Youth of Today & Tomorrow—a whole world awaits you.

You can be somebody. You can give the world a beautiful light to see. You have brilliant minds. That is the way God created you. You have talents hidden deep within you that are be explored and dug up like gold.

You, Beautiful Black Youth, can be somebody great—not only as a singer, fashion model, NBA Player, comedian, talk show host. You do not have to be an entertainer, made to make someone laugh, clap, make another dunk in a basketball goal, hit another homerun in baseball. You can be great even if you do not sing a hit song. Do not give up if you see these goals not coming your way.

You must continue the great legacy set for our people. Take all of your energy and study our Great Freedom Fighting Ancestors. There are so many great ones not given to you like Henry McNeil Turner, Ida B. Wells, Nzinga, Elijah Muhammad, Yaa Asantewaa, Granny Nanny, Harriet Tubman, Martin Delaney, and many others. When you study them, you will see how you can give your God-given talents to our people. That is a life long mission. It will make you “A Star in the Universe” that will shine forever.

When we comes back, we cleans em real good. Cut da fish headz off & guts em. You know. Throws da fish headz to da catz. Once we gets em cleaned up, we takes da fishes in da house. By den, daddy be done had dat grease real hot. And he gots dem grits cooking with cheese in it. Mustard & ketchup ready. You talkin bout some good eating. Man, you got to take ya shoes off & wiggle ya toes while you eat dat kinda Deep South Cooking.

Peep this…at night when it was hard seeing the fishing rod duck down when fish bit the bait–my father had a master plan for that. You know baby shoe bells. He used them. Tied them to the tip of the fishing rods, where the hole is, where the line go through. He tied the bell on the rod tip wt bread wrappers. We might be down a railroad track, checking lines tied to the tracks, trees, etc. Just lines & hooks wt bait. But we had other rods out too. When a fish hit them, the bells went off.

Sometimes, the fish bit the bait one after another or at the same time. It sounded like Christmas bells going off. DADDY WOULD SAY…”that’s what I’m talking bout….get ready lil fish, y’all getting fried up tonight….yes Sir Son, that’s what I’m talking bout.”